Witte, Pavel Yakovlevich de

Pavel Yakovlevich de Witte was born on June 29 ( July 10 ) in 1796 into the family of a native of Holland , who entered the Russian service in 1783, Yakov Yakovlevich de Witte ^[1] - a prominent military engineer in the reign of Paul I and Alexander I , a member of the Department of water communications, engineer general . Pavel Yakovlevich’s brothers — Major General Pyotr Yakovlevich (who served as the Minister of Communications) and Major-General Edward Yakovlevich (military engineer) de Witte also gained fame.

De Witte entered military service at the age of 13 in 1809, and on March 9, 1812, he was promoted from the ensigns of the Life Guards Preobrazhensky Regiment to the warrant officers of the same regiment. In the ranks of his regiment, a young officer took part in the Patriotic War of 1812 (including the Battle of Borodino ) and foreign campaigns of the Russian army of 1813-1814 (the battle of Kulm , the capture of Paris ), in 1813 received the rank of second lieutenant and the Order of St. Anne 4 th degree

Continuing at the end of the war service in the regiment, de Witte quickly rose to the ranks (in 1817 the lieutenant , from December 20, 1819, the staff captain , from February 20, 1821 to the captain ) and on April 22, 1823, at the age of 26, was made Colonels with a transfer to the Life Guards Izmailovsky Regiment , in which he commanded a battalion. The day after his accession to the throne, Nicholas I granted Colonel de Witte to the adjutant wing . Together with the Life Guard Izmailovsky regiment, de Witte took part in the Russian-Turkish war of 1828-1829 and in suppressing the uprising in Poland in 1831 (including the capture of Warsaw).

Produced on August 22, 1831 as a Major General , De Witte, on October 24 of the same year, was appointed commander of the Lithuanian Life Guards and held this position for ten years, until September 22, 1841, from 1836 simultaneously commanding the 5th Infantry Guards brigade, and in 1840 - temporarily and the 3rd Guards Infantry Division .

According to the author of the regimental history of the Life Guards Lithuanian regiment A.N. Markgrafsky, de Witte " was an educated, hospitable and amiable man " ^[2] . Describing the period of his command of the regiment, Markgrafsky notes:

During his ten-year command of the regiment, P. Ya. DeWitt was attentive to the needs of his subordinates, kind and disliked strict measures, especially in relation to officers. In announcing in the regiment about the issues he had found in the regiment of faults or omissions in the service, he did not like to mention the names of the guilty officers. If in extreme cases sometimes it was necessary to resort to measures of severity, then Pavel Yakovlevich in his orders accompanied them with soft expressions and regret about what had happened ^[3] .

On September 22, 1841, de Witte was appointed commander of the 3rd Infantry Division (leaving the Lithuanian Life Guards in the lists, in which he was registered until the end of his life). On April 11, 1843, he was promoted to lieutenant general with the approval of the division head. and in 1847, moved to the post of chief of the 1st Grenadier Division .

In 1855, de Witte was the commander of the 3rd Guards Reserve Infantry Division and a temporary member of the Committee on the drafting of the military infantry service of the statute, and then, in the same year, was appointed a member of the Auditorium General of the War Ministry . March 10, 1862 promoted to generals of infantry ^[4] .

During the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Kulm in 1863, Alexander II invited to the ceremonial reception in Tsarskoye Selo all the well-known gentlemen of the Kulm Iron Cross, including the general from the Infantry de Witte ^[5] .

He died on August 17 ( 29 ), 1864 and was buried at Holy Trinity Cemetery in Oranienbaum .

For his service, de Witte had numerous awards, including:

• Order of St. Anne of the 4th degree (1813)
• Prussian Iron Cross insignia ( Kulma cross ) (1813)
• Order of St. Anne 2 nd degree (in 1827)
• Order of St. Vladimir of the 3rd degree (1829)
• Polish Insignia for Military Dignity ( Virtuti Militari ) 2nd Class (1831)
• Order of St. Stanislav 1st degree (1835)
• Order of St. Anne, 1st degree (1837; the Imperial Crown to this order was granted in 1839)
• Order of St. George of the 4th Degree (November 29, 1837, for irreproachable service for 25 years in officer ranks, No. 5520 according to the list of Grigorovich - Stepanov's cavalier )
• Order of St. Vladimir 2nd degree (1845)
• Order of the White Eagle (1848)
• Insignia for XLV years of irreproachable service (1859)

• Volkov S.V. The Generality of the Russian Empire. Encyclopedic dictionary of generals and admirals from Peter I to Nicholas II. - T. 1. A - K. - M., 2009. - P. 268. - ISBN 978-5-9524-4166-8
• List of senior generals . Corrected on June 20, 1840. - SPb., 1840. - p. 233.
• List of senior generals. Corrected on May 1, 1864. - SPb., 1854. - p. 128.
• Miloradovich GA. The list of persons is the retinue of their majesties from the reign of Emperor Peter I to 1886 according to the seniority of the day of appointment: Adjutant generals, retinue major generals, adjutant wing adjoining and major brigade. - Kiev, 1886.
• Petersburg necropolis . - T. 2 (D - L)]. - SPb., 1912. - p. 19.